Canadian Grand Prix: Pre-qualifying

At the opposite end of the grid was the pre-qualifying brigade, seen here in some rare footage of them in action during the fifth round of the season in Canada. Nine drivers took part in the session bidding for a place in the top four which granted them a chance to participate in the rest of the weekend – the other five were eliminated.

The entries shown in this video are as follows: Bruno Giacomelli, Life L190; Gabriele Tarquini, AGS-Ford JH25; Yannick Dalmas, AGS-Ford JH25; Bertrand Gachot, Coloni-Subari C3B; Olivier Grouillard, Osella FA1M; Roberto Moreno, Eurobrun-Judd ER189B. The two Larrousse-Lamborghinis of Aguri Suzuki and Eric Bernard are also seen very briefly on the track.

Moreno, Grouillard, Suzuki and Bernard all made it into qualifying proper. Tarquini was first to miss out by just 0.011s and Dalmas was half a second slower.

The rest posted times that were truly hopeless. Gachot managed just five laps and his 1’44.185 was 15.9 seconds slower than Moreno. Claudio Langes in the second Eurobrun was another three seconds slower but only did two laps before his car stopped.

And Giacomelli in the infamously dreadful Life was a shocking 21.985 seconds off the pace. Read more about this comically bad Grand Prix entry here:

Mexican Grand Prix: Final laps

Ayrton Senna led until lap 60 but dropped back into the clutches of Prost as he struggled with his tyres. Prost moved ahead of Senna, who dropped out with a puncture on lap 63 – which you can see at 4:01.

Next the focus switches to their team mates. Mansell headed Gerhard Berger at first but the swapped places twice off-camera, first when Berger muscled his way through at the first corner.

Mansell struck back with an audacious pass around the outside of the fearsomely fast Peraltada. Unfortunately for this spectator, that all happened out of his view. But he did see a joyous Prost pass by at 7:20 – and the crowd seem very appreciative of his efforts.

French Grand Prix: Victory lap

The fans train their camera first on Prost, then Nakajima as they head to the grid. They kept a close eye on the Tyrrell driver to begin with but turned their attention to the battle for the lead later in the race.

For many laps Ivan Capelli looked set to cause a major upset as he led in the Adrian Newey-designed Leyton House CG901 (from 5:30). But Capelli’s oil bump broke with three laps to go, and Prost seized an opportunity to pass. Capelli nonetheless claimed an excellent second.

Silverstone testing

This video of testing at Silverstone begins with footage of the other Leyton House belonging to Mauricio Gugelmin. There’s also some close-up footage of Senna and Berger in their McLaren MP4-5Bs, and Mark Blundell testing for Williams. Fast-forward to the end of the video for some track footage.

17 comments on F1 fans’ classic Grand Prix videos: 1990

I’m sorry but as you can see by my avatar i’m a Ferrari fan too, and i can’t understand why people keep praising the Ferraris V12 sound in comparison with other V12, I love the sound but all V12 f1 cars sound good to me.

Comedy moment that! It probably went fast enough to be a death-trap though. It was a bit of a shock to see a driver who could rest his arms on the sides of the car – just after we’d been discussing driver safety and closed cockpits…

The Canadian pre-quali video is amazing. To be freely walking around the pit lane during a session. To stand on the pit wall without any fencing and to hold the camera so close to the cars passing by must have been some experience, even if the cars weren’t the fastest. Love the AGS that fails even to get beyond the pit lane.
By modern standards, there’s so much wrong with all this, but for nostalgia alone, this is just as amazing as a wheel to wheel championship decider.